


Old-World Archives And Chill

by Alexilulu



Series: Between The Lines [4]
Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 11:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10853376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexilulu/pseuds/Alexilulu
Summary: A2 gets lonely and Anemone does her best to make a nice night in for her depressed gf. It doesn't go great but what goes well in this series for anyone, tbh.





	Old-World Archives And Chill

**Author's Note:**

> I apparently don't have it in me to write something fluffy and not also just drop some insane depressing shit in the middle of it? it's great.

The next week passes slowly for A2. She can’t leave Anemone’s room (they both agreed it was simply too dangerous while YoRHa was operating out of it). Despite that, her restless nature from spending so many years on the run has her pacing the room and trying to distract herself with anything available or simply performing basic exercise simply to have something to do. Eventually, she resorts to pawing through the books Anemone has scattered across (and around) the dingy desk in the corner. Most of it is musty philosophy that she has to stop, reread, reread again, and then angrily give up on. Exhausting all her other options, she’s left with cleaning up the mess around the tiny room; she does get a small bit of enjoyment from seeing that Anemone still follows the ‘leave it for when we move camp next’ philosophy of cleanliness. After going through that routine several times, A2 gives up on finding something to do with herself for the day and goes back to bed, trying to build back up energy reserves she wasted on 2B and 9S.

Some times (she mentally categorizes these as nights, despite never having seen a time when the sun didn’t hang perpetually overhead), she wakes up to find Anemone in bed with her, fast asleep against her back. Most of the time, her coming awake brings Anemone to wakefulness as well, and the two chat and/or argue about some meaningless thing; The cleanliness of Anemone’s home, when A2 can go outside again, if A2 is gonna ever cut that ridiculous mop of hair going down to her ass, and so forth. She likes these days more than the alternatives. There’s only so many times you can repeat a cycle of actions before they become worse than boring, but actively infuriating. Finally, one ‘night’ together, A2 gives voice to her frustrations.

“Maybe coming here was a mistake.” They’re laying together face to face in the cramped bed, Anemone idily brushing hair out of A2’s face and smirking when a different strand as long as her arm slides into it’s place.

“What, this again? Come on, I’m not that bad to be around, am I?”

“It’s not you. I just can’t take this tiny fucking room anymore. And those two are still hanging around, and…ugh. I don’t fit in to your neat little camp life.”

“Mmm. Hm.” She takes a piece of A2’s hair and places it under her own nose like a long, white moustache. “We could move into a bigger room, it’s not like theres not a hundred rooms in this building.” A2 yanks her hair away, pouting.

“Then I just have a bigger room to clean up your mess in, bitch. I’m _bored_ , and you’re always busy, and I can’t do anything in this fucking camp but sleep with you and sit around the rest of the time staring a hole in the wall.”

“This is really bothering you, isn’t it?” A2 nods sullenly, breaking eye contact. Anemone places her hand on A2’s cheek and rubs under her eye with her thumb. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy. We’re dealing with preparations for resupplying some ship out in the Pacific, and I’ve been micromanaging it too much. I just have to go talk to the boys and hand off some of the shit I don’t need to handle, and then we can do something together. Does that sound okay?” A2 nods again, closing her eyes.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I shouldn’t get so wrapped up in this shit, I’m not the only member of the Resistance and I know it. But, you are the only Attacker No. 2 and I care about you a whole hell of a lot more than I do that other thing.” A2 snorts, shaking her head.

“I can’t believe anyone has ever thought of you as a leader.”

“Me either, honestly. Lemme go tell everyone to fuck off, and we can watch something on the terminal.” A2 catches Anemone’s hand as she stands, giving it a quick squeeze before Anemone dresses and steps outside. When she returns an hour or so later, she’s carrying a small stack of plasticized boxes that she sets down on the bed and starts shuffling through. A2 sits up, stretching.

“What the hell are those?”

“They used to be called DVDs, apparently humans recorded video of themselves doing things for entertainment. We found a building full of stacks and stacks of all the same ones, and some of the ones deep in the stacks weren’t too badly damaged. We rigged up a laser to read the data off of it and put the video onto the terminal, so we get to look back at the work of the humans. …Some of it is pretty weird.” She holds up one, labeled -SCHOOL LIFE 101-, which features a young-looking girl wearing a strange blue coat and nothing else, posing seductively. “Apparently some of the guys like this one…I guess I can see the appeal.”

“Lemme see some.” Anemone passes her half the stack, and pawing through, most of the rest seem to be similar themes; girls in swimsuits that are barely there, girls in blouses and skirts that only technically cover erogenous zones (the actual coverage is given by large stars or hearts overlaid over them), and one where a man in a pair of chaps poses on the front with a large star over his crotch. “…These are all the worst. Is it just naked people the whole way down? Is that what human entertainment is about?”

“Seems like it…I should have known when Jackass handed me these. Ugh.”

“Well, these all suck, so just pick something, and we’ll watch it. I want to make it clear that I disapprove of all of these, and whoever Jackass is, though.”

“Hopefully you never have to meet them and learn they really do live up to the name.” Anemone stands, dragging the desk over closer to the bed and draping her blanket across A2’s back before curling up against her and drawing the blanket closed across the both of them, resting her head against A2’s collarbone.

“What, I have to cuddle you again?”

“You’re taller than me, and I wouldn’t be able to see anything through your hair anyway.” A2 scoffs, pinching Anemone on the arm while the DVD loads.

The menu is a lot to take in; At first, it looks like a crowd of women in various strange styles of skirts and blouses, until you notice that all of them are the same girl, each one posing with another version of herself. After Anemone realizes, she bursts into laughter. “Man, humans must have had the weirdest taste. Is it someone’s dream to have 6 identical women all to their own?” A2 groans.

“Just start it already, this is weird enough without 6 people trying to be sexy at me at once.”

Once the show starts, it does not stop. A parade of artfully removed schoolgirl uniforms dances across the terminal screen.

“That much lubricant could keep me going for another 3 decades…”

“Yeah, but it certainly does have an interesting effect on skin. I can kind of see the appeal, I guess?”

“She’s definitely got a lot of appeal, too.”

“Too bad nobody wants to waste that much material on a combat android these days.” A2 scoffs.

“I don’t think they ever wanted to, really.”

“Yeah, I guess they really did cut corners in some regards, huh.” Anemone slides one of her hands along the outside of A2’s legs. “I don’t mind it much, though. Woah, when did that guy get here? And what is he wearing? His clothes are totally different than hers.”

“I kind of like it, all that black is a sleek look.”

“You totally would say that.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

The terminal’s tiny speaker erupts with muffled moans when an incredibly abrupt scene transition cuts to the actress giving superficially reluctant oral sex to an actor whose face remains conveniently out of frame.

“Speaking of.” Anemone starts laughing. “Man, they just go for it.”

“…Can we turn this off?” Anemone immediately pauses, rolling her head back to look at A2. “This is too weird. It’s…Sorry. This is just…” Anemone turns off the screen, shuffling around under the blanket so she’s sitting in A2’s lap and facing her.

“Are you okay?” A2 shakes her head.

“I don’t know. I don’t know, this is so weird, a month ago I was sleeping on a rock and now I’m here with you in your _bed under a blanket_ and we’re watching two humans from like, 10 millennia ago _fuck each other_ , and it’s so weird, why is everything so _weird_?” She laughs, her eyes welling with tears. Anemone gently places a hand on A2’s cheek, resting her forehead against A2’s.

“Oh, honey…It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here with you, and I know what you mean. Fuck, I thought you were dead and gone with everybody else until I found you asleep at my desk, remember?” A2 sniffs, closing her eyes. “Yeah, that was a fucking shock, I’ll tell you. Fuck, I wake up in bed with you and wonder if I’m dreaming, and if I’m gonna wake up alone some day, or if this is some godawful fucked up memory command’s put in me to give me something to fight for. But it’s not, as weird as this is, it’s real. You’re real and I’m real and I love you so much.” Anemone takes a deep breath.

“I spent so much of my life after Pearl Harbor wondering how I was going to kill myself. I missed my team and I missed you and Dahlia and Rose and everyone, I didn’t want to be left alone after everything we went through, but I was a coward so I threw myself into fighting hoping one day I’d get to see you again on the other side if it even exists, but I kept surviving. Then they kept promoting me, and I ended up in command of a camp and running the place and I found people I liked being around who cared about me and it kind of faded into the background…but not a day went by that I didn’t imagine what it would be like if everyone survived that stupid fucking suicide mission and you were here and Rose were leading instead of me. We could just relax and yeah we’re still at war, but we made it, we’re alive and we can just be together.” Anemone exhales, wiping away her own tears. “I kind of got off track somewhere in there. The point is that the world is awful and weird and we barely have any say in what happens in it, but, to be honest, all I ever wanted was someone I could get through it with, smiling at each other. And I got her back, after so long. So we’re gonna fucking keep going forever. And we’re gonna fucking smile and grin and bear all the shit this awful world can give us, because we’re the toughest bitches on the planet. Got it?” A2 bumps her forehead against Anemone’s while nodding.

“I got that you are way too into your own voice, but yeah, I got it.”

“Bitch.” Anemone laughed, kissing A2 on the forehead.

“Whatever. Well, now that we’ve collectively ruined the mood, what do we do with the rest of our time?”

“Hmm…We could just go to sleep, I’m all cried out and tired now.”

“Oh, so you only see me for my top spooning skills, huh?”

“You are pretty good at it, but I think I want to big spoon tonight.” A2 squints at her, then shrugs.

“Fine, but you gotta get out of my lap first.”

“Mm…In a minute.” She’s resting her cheek against A2’s shoulder, eyes closed and leaning into her.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep like that, come on…”

“M’not sleeping, I’m just resting my eyes. 5 minutes.” A2 sighs, relaxing.

“You’re the worst, you know that? Anemone?” She doesn’t respond, breathing slowly into A2’s neck. “…Ugh. After all that, I can’t just mess with her…mm.” She settles in against the wall behind her, closing her eyes. “Just 5 minutes.”


End file.
